Yet the fact that his congressional district includes Houston's Johnson Space Center has thrust the Sugar Land resident into the forefront of an uphill battle to rescue the Constellation program and potentially save up to 2,500 of the nearly 18,000 space-related jobs in the greater Houston area.

Olson says he welcomes the challenge, the most serious test of his political skills since entering Congress in January 2009. The former staffer for former Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen. John Cornyn insists he's optimistic that he and other lawmakers can forge a bipartisan coalition in Congress powerful enough to reverse Obama's decision to end the moon program.

If the former Navy pilot wins the showdown, it will be through brute political force, not persuasion.

“The battle is far from over by any means,” Olson declared. “The president doesn't get the last word. We do.”

Focus on district's issues

The freshman lawmaker enters the fray with a reputation on Capitol Hill as a solid conservative who votes with GOP colleagues 94 percent of the time. He has opposed Obama administration proposals to stimulate the economy, bail out Wall Street firms, rescue American automakers and overhaul the $2.5-trillion-a-year health care system.

Olson, who kept his family in Texas when he came to Washington, has focused on issues of concern to his district and his background — military affairs, NASA, transportation and water projects, observes Pete Sepp of the conservative National Taxpayers Union. He also shares the economic conservative streak of former boss and mentor Gramm, who authored a well-known deficit-reduction law.

Olson's bill to delay an increase in the minimum wage by one year is “a solid, economically necessary proposal to save jobs that we supported,” Sepp said. It's been buried by the House Democratic majority.

With that kind of background, experts forecast the back-bench Republican will have a hard time orchestrating action by a Democratic Congress to override a decision by a Democratic president. Olson's true-blue GOP record leaves little room for the White House to answer a Texans' appeal to revive a program crucial to Houston.

“Folks voting against everything a president puts out can't walk up to the president later and say, ‘Oh by the way, here's something I want you to help me with,' ” one Texas Democrat said.

Coming from a staunchly Republican state means Olson “doesn't have the credentials to do much horse trading,” says Dick Murray, a political scientist at University of Houston. “The Obama administration just doesn't owe much to his part of the political universe.”

Blames redistricting

Former Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, who had been in line to lead the House panel overseeing NASA before losing his seat to Olson, blames Texas' current predicament squarely on the sweeping congressional redistricting fashioned by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

“Texas has suffered greatly,” said Lampson, who lost races in two congressional districts as a result.

“Without that redistricting, I would have been chairman of the space subcommittee representing JSC and in direct contact with the president and House leadership. That would have made a difference.”

Expanding alliances

To overcome that political handicap, Olson is expanding alliances beyond the 34-member Texas congressional delegation to include powerful lawmakers such as Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson from Florida and Republican Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama, veteran senators representing states with NASA space flight centers.

“We need to take this national to make sure the American people understand we are giving up our leadership in human space flight,” says Olson, who relishes the camaraderie of the House. “I don't want to see a Chinese astronaut, a Russian astronaut, an Indian astronaut or a Japanese astronaut walking around the moon before we get back there.”

Administration officials contend Obama's decision does not ground space exploration but ends the sorely underfunded Constellation program that received only $9 billion of the $108 billion needed to return astronauts to the moon.

As he enters the NASA battle, Olson seems politically secure on his home political turf in a Fort Bend County-centered congressional district that has witnessed two hard-fought elections since DeLay left the seat after 21 years.

Olson faces no opposition in Texas' GOP primary and faces the winner of a three-way race for the Democratic nomination among little-known, poorly funded rivals.